


we could turn the world to gold

by nikkiRA



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: But also, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), kind of, moron4moron, newsflash asshole we've been dating the entire time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 21:57:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19754566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikkiRA/pseuds/nikkiRA
Summary: Crowley makes a disbelieving sound. “I have been courting you for six thousand years, angel.”Aziraphale thinks they're dating. Crowley thinks they just hold hands sometimes.





	we could turn the world to gold

**Author's Note:**

> title from "run away with me" by carly rae jepson

It slips out. He is sprawled out on Aziraphale’s couch, glass of wine in his hand. Aziraphale is in his chair, rambling on about something that Crowley was only half listening to. The ozone layer, perhaps? No, that couldn’t be right. A book about the ozone layer, possibly. Crowley wasn’t listening to the words; he was watching Aziraphale’s lips move, watching the way he gestured around animatedly without once spilling a drop of wine, the way the slightest hint of a slouch gave away just how drunk he was. And all of these things come together to form one perfect picture: Aziraphale, drunk and beautiful and alive in a world that hadn’t ended, and Crowley opens his mouth and says, “Do you want to move out of London?”

Aziraphale trails off. He leans forward and puts his drink on the table. For a long time he doesn’t speak, and Crowley spends the entire time calling himself a lot of different names.  _ Stupid, what the Hell is wrong with you, why would you ask that? Do you not remember 1967?  _ This steady tirade keeps up in his head until Aziraphale finally says, “Do you know? I think that would be really nice.”

* * *

It isn’t hard to move when you have otherworldly powers, so one moment the small cottage was empty and the next it was filled with their things. 

Well, mostly Aziraphale’s things. Aziraphale did not agree with Crowley’s decorating choices, so most of what Crowley had brought with him -- his throne, his elaborately carved table, the statue -- had been shoved into a back room. Only his plants and his copy of the Mona Lisa are allowed in the open. 

Aziraphale fits most of his books in the second bedroom before they start spilling over into the living space. Crowley moves a stack of Yeats off of the kitchen table -- the end of the alphabet getting the short end of the stick -- and brings it into the bedroom, where Aziraphale is magicking more space. 

“Did you ever consider that maybe the solution would be less books?”

Aziraphale gives him a long look. Crowley holds his hands up. “Yes, okay. I’m sorry. Can I help?”

Aziraphale directs him, having Crowley move books and the occasional plant as the angel makes more space in the small room. When the books have been sorted Aziraphale looks around the room with a smile. 

“Oh, that’s lovely,” he says, clapping his hands together once. He grins at Crowley -- wide, unabashed, like the sun shining straight on him. Crowley opens to him like a flower. 

And then Aziraphale grabs his hand, brings it up to his mouth and presses his lips to Crowley’s knuckles. Crowley’s brain short circuits. 

And then, just as quickly as it happened, Aziraphale lets go of his hand. “I think I’m going to learn how to cook,” he says, leaving the room. “The old fashioned way, you know? Like humans do. It will give me something to do.”

Crowley stares at his back. 

* * *

They don’t talk about it. 

Aziraphale learns how to cook. Crowley adamantly does not. They bring Crowley’s bed over because Aziraphale never sleeps and Crowley loves his bed, and sometimes when he wakes up Aziraphale is sitting next to him reading. Crowley will eye the long stretch of thigh beside his head and feel the urge to press into it. Sometimes he does. 

They don't talk about it. 

The plants, traitorous things that they are, blossom under Aziraphale’s presence. Literally and figuratively. Aziraphale coos and compliments them, waxes on about how beautiful they are, how good they are, and no matter what Crowley says to them, he cannot get anywhere near the same amount of fear and respect they used to give him. He complains to Aziraphale, but the angel just laughs and then presses a hand to Crowley’s cheek and Crowley can’t remember what was so important about plants, anyway, not when Aziraphale presses in close and places a kiss to the corner of Crowley's mouth.

And still,  _ still,  _ they don’t talk about it. 

* * *

The thing about being a supernatural, immortal being is that time doesn’t work the same way as it does for regular humans. When you’ve been alive for six thousand years, a day passes in the blink of an eye. A month, a year, they’re not much different. So they settle into a routine, and they don’t talk about it, and Crowley suffers for five long years. 

Crowley doesn’t sleep every night, but on the nights he does head to bed Aziraphale follows him, sitting up beside him and reading a book. Sometimes when Crowley wakes up Aziraphale is lying down beside him, and sometimes when this happens Crowley’s traitorous body is curled around him like he is a particularly sunny rock. They will wake up and Aziraphale will try something new in the kitchen that will inevitably end up rather shapeless and gooey (“How can someone be so  _ consistently  _ bad at this?”) and Crowley will always, always taste it anyway. And then Crowley will miracle them some proper food, or some days they drive down to a locally owned restaurant. 

And then they will go home, and Crowley will stalk around in their garden and glare at the plants, and Aziraphale will read, or call mysterious people in search of rare books, or watch episodes of the Great British Bake Off. Crowley will sit beside him on the couch and curl around him, and sometimes Aziraphale will read aloud, the soothing timber of his voice lulling Crowley to sleep. 

It is calm, it is domestic, it is everything Crowley had never let himself want. Aziraphale looks at him like Crowley hung the moon, and even though Crowley  _ did,  _ technically, it still catches him by surprise each time. Aziraphale lets the love pour out of him with no barrier and sometimes it feels like Crowley’s going to drown in it, and sometimes it feels like he’s going to be burned alive, but he doesn’t want it any other way. 

And they still don’t talk about it. 

* * *

On the day he finally breaks, he wakes up after he had fallen asleep in Aziraphale’s lap. They had been sitting outside in the shade under a tree and Crowley, sleepy in the warmth of the sun, had lain down with his head on Aziraphale’s thigh. When he wakes up the sun is setting and Aziraphale has his fingers in Crowley’s hair. 

“Oh good,” he says, as Crowley stretches and opens his eyes. “I was beginning to think you were going to sleep another century away, right in my lap.”

Crowley turns over and buries his nose in Aziraphale’s paunch. “Not a bad idea.”

Aziraphale laughs lightly, fingers stroking through Crowley’s hair. It feels so amazing that Crowley thinks he might fall right back asleep. Aziraphale must sense this, because he pokes Crowley in the cheek. “Let’s go inside. Before the bugs come out.”

It’s a bad excuse, as no bug had ever come near enough to bite either of them, but he sits up with a sigh anyway, yawning into his hand and leaning back into Aziraphale, who wraps his arms around him and shifts them so Crowley is leaning back into his chest, situated between Aziraphale’s legs. Aziraphale ducks his head and buries it in Crowley’s neck. “Do you know,” he says, and his lips trace along Crowley’s skin and he can’t stop himself from shivering. “I am very, very happy, my dear.”

Crowley swallows. The world feels like it had tipped under his feet, so he tries to set it right, tries to play it off. 

“Don’t be soft, angel.”

“I am soft,” Aziraphale says. Crowley can feel his smile. “Come inside. I think I’ve finally figured out the lasagna recipe.”

“What do you mean? I liked it when it tasted of soap.”

Aziraphale pinches him. “Don’t be smart.”

“I’m smart and you’re soft.”

“A good pair, we are.”

Aziraphale moves and Crowley admits defeat, standing up and heading into the cottage. He sits at the kitchen table and watches Aziraphale putter around before something inside of him finally… snaps. 

“Aziraphale,” he says hoarsely. “Do you think we should talk about this?”

“Talk about what, dear?” He says, busying himself with dinner. 

“About this… thing we’re doing.”

“What are we doing?”

Crowley doesn’t know if he’s being intentionally thick or if he’s just concentrating on what he’s doing, so he says, “Aziraphale, can you please -- can you turn around, please.”

He does, looking at Crowley with a worried look. He sits across the table and grabs Crowley’s hand. 

“What’s wrong?’

“Nothing, nothing is wrong, it’s not  _ wrong,  _ it’s just -- I can’t keep doing this thing where we don’t talk about it.”

“Talk about what, Crowley?”

“The everything! The handholding, and the sharing a bed, and the kissing, and the -- and I really can’t think of any other way to phrase this but please know I hate myself for saying the word  _ cuddling. _ All of it just happened, suddenly, and I’m -- I’m  _ happy,  _ Hell knows -- actually, hopefully they don’t -- but I need to. We need to talk about it. I can’t go on  _ not  _ talking about it.”

Aziraphale blinks at him slowly. Neither of them needed to blink, technically speaking, which meant Aziraphale was just doing it to show how confused he was. 

“I was under the impression that we  _ had  _ talked about it.”

This confuses Crowley more than anything Aziraphale could have said. “When exactly did we talk about this?”

Now both of them are just staring at each other in confusion. “You asked me to move out of London,” Aziraphale says. “Was that… was that not what that was?”

Crowley makes a noise that sounds like a bunch of letters being pressed together all at once. “When! When did we discuss any of this!”

“You asked me to move in with you! I thought that we were finally…”

“Finally what?”

Aziraphale looks at him and says nothing. 

“Aziraphale. Finally  _ what?” _

“Finally getting our act together, I suppose,” he eventually says. “Finally stopped mucking about.”

Crowley does a very solid impression of a fish. He very strongly needs a drink; one is suddenly in front of him. 

“So you’ve thought. For five years. That we have been…” He can’t quite finish the sentence. He doesn’t want to label it, afraid that it won’t be what Aziraphale wanted. 

“Courting, yes.”

Crowley pinches the bridge of his nose. “Nobody says courting anymore, Aziraphale.”

“Hang on. What did you think we’ve been doing all this time?”

Crowley gives a half-hearted shrug. “I… don’t know.”

A drink appears in front of Aziraphale. “So,” he says, after downing half of it. “If I am understanding properly. For the past five years I have thought that we were --”

“Don’t say courting.”

“It just sounds much better! And you have thought that we were… what, just holding hands for fun?”

“You don’t have to say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Well, like I’m an idiot,” Crowley says defensively. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, in the voice of the very tired. “Five years.”

“Okay, sure, you definitely have a point, but --”

Aziraphale stands up and grabs Crowley’s face between his hands, smashing their mouths together in a way that is almost  _ violent.  _ Is it not their first kiss -- over the years Aziraphale has kissed him gently, and there have been times when Crowley had worked up the courage to close the gap between them, too. But not like this. Never like  _ this.  _ This is inelegant and almost feral, something undeniably human that was alive between them. Aziraphale bites his lip, and it is both an admonition and a plea. 

Crowley reaches out, drags Aziraphale into his lap. They couldn’t be closer, not unless they melded their essences together, which isn’t a bad idea, actually, and Crowley makes note of it to go back to later. He grips Aziraphale’s hips. 

Aziraphale pulls away. 

“Five years,” he says quietly. Crowley runs a hand up his back. 

“Not my greatest moment, admittedly.”

Aziraphale smiles. “I thought you were just… taking it slow.”

“Have you ever known me to go slow?”  Crowley tips his head back, gives Aziraphale what he hopes to be a lazy smile. “Does this mean you’ll start officially courting me?”

Much to Crowley’s eternal dismay, Aziraphale crawls off of his lap. “Maybe you should court me, hmm?”

Crowley makes a disbelieving sound. “I have been courting you for six thousand years, angel.”

Aziraphale gives Crowley the softest smile he’s ever seen. Crowley thinks he might actually discorporate on the spot.

“How about some dinner, then. And we can go from there.”

And Crowley nods. They do, after all, have time. 

**Author's Note:**

> but Nicole, you say, do you think it's really realistic for someone to go five years without asking what the hell is going on? to which i reply, you know when you're at a friends house and you're dying of thirst but you're too anxious to ask for a drink? that is anthony j "bundle of anxiety in a trench coat" crowley
> 
> tumblr @aravenlikeawritingdesk  
> twitter @aravenlikea


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